Quad9 Will Stop Serving France on November 24 Rather Than Block 58 Pirate Streaming Domains

Quad9 will stop answering DNS queries from users in France on November 24, 2026, after a French court ordered the Swiss non-profit resolver to block pirate sports streams. Its blocklist feed protects users from malware and phishing domains, and the foundation said it "must make our cybersecurity protection and general services unavailable to French users."

Quad9 announced the decision on October 22 in a post titled "Farewell, France." It said the court ruled against it on October 21 in a case brought by the broadcaster beIN, and that the ruling requires it to block recursive resolution of certain domain names for users in France.

What the court ordered

The order descends from a May 13 ruling (case RG 26/02207) in which the Paris Judicial Court told Google, Whalebone, which operates the European Union's DNS4EU resolver, and Quad9 to block pirate streams of WTA tennis matches, according to TorrentFreak. beIN listed six domains at first. Two later updates added 52 more, for 58 in total, TorrentFreak reported, citing Quad9.

beIN asked the court in a second round for penalties of up to €10,000 per domain per day, or €580,000 a day across 58 domains. The court in May had refused an earlier request for €2,000 per domain per day, saying nothing showed Quad9 intended to resist.

1. Sought by beIN580K EUR per day
2. Set by the court1000 EUR per day

Source: TorrentFreak (request) and Quad9 blog post of October 22, 2026 (amount set), accessed 2026-10-23

Quad9 said the court reduced the daily penalty from €580,000 to €1,000. If it did not comply, penalties would total €24,000 through November 14, excluding legal costs. The post does not name the domains.

Why Quad9 did not pick another option

Quad9 listed four routes and rejected each. Blocking only for French users is not possible, it said, because it keeps no user records and requires no sign-up. TorrentFreak quoted its earlier position: "There is no legally useful way for us to define a French user."

Adding the names to its global malware and phishing database would extend French law worldwide, Quad9 said. Geographic IP blocking failed in Germany, where Sony Music Entertainment GmbH sued Quad9 in a case running from 2021 to 2023. Users evaded the block with VPNs and Quad9 was fined for contempt, though it later won the case.

Doing nothing was not an option either. Quad9 said it will not block the domains and that an appeal is pending. The post says about 20 other lawsuits are pending against it and other DNS resolvers in France.

Who loses the resolver

Quad9's post lists French networks that use the service, including government agencies, research and education networks, hospitals, utilities and ISPs, and says hundreds more exist. The foundation gave users 30 days and said it hopes that is enough time to switch. Anyone with Quad9 addresses hard-coded in routers, firewalls or DHCP scopes in France has until November 24 to replace them.

Cisco made the same choice in 2024, when OpenDNS suspended service in France after the first order of this kind, TorrentFreak reported. In July 2026 the French Parliament passed a law allowing new domains to be added automatically during live broadcasts, with the regulator ARCOM reviewing them afterward. Quad9 called that "recklessly dangerous," according to TorrentFreak.

Related coverage on this beat includes the ksmbd reports posted to a public kernel list and the Plex2Shell advisory.

Quad9 has not said when its appeal will be heard. The service to France ends on November 24.